Country Facts - Malawi

The People

Ethnic Composition
Chewa, Nyanja, Tumbuko, Yao, Lomwe, Sena, Tonga, Ngoni, Ngonde, Asian, and European.
Religious Composition

Protestant	55%
Roman Catholic	20%
Muslim	20%
Other (regional)	5%

Languages Spoken

English and Chichewa are the two official languages of Malawi. Other local dialects are important regionally.

Education and Literacy

Malawi's overall adult literacy is around 58 percent. Among males it is 72.8 percent and females 43.4 percent.

Labor Force

Total: 4.5 million (2001)
By occupation:

Agriculture	86%
Other	14%

Geography

Land Mass Total

45,745 sq mi (118,480 sq km)

Land

36,324 sq mi (94,080 sq km)

Water

9,420 sq mi (24,400 sq km)

Land Boundaries

Total: 1,790 mi (2,881 km)
Border countries: Mozambique 974 mi (1,569 km), Tanzania 295 ft (475 km), Zambia 520 ft (837 km)

Climate/Weather

Subtropical; rainy season (November to May); dry season (May to November).

Terrain

Narrow elongated plateau with rolling plains, rounded hills, some mountains.

Elevation extremes

Lowest: Junction of the Shire River and international boundary with Mozambique 121 ft (37 m)
Highest: Sapitwa peak 9,849 ft (3,002 m) part of Mulanje mountain range

Natural Resources

Limestone, arable land, hydropower, unexploited deposits of uranium, coal, and bauxite.

Land use

Arable land	20%
Permanent crops	1%
Other	79%

(1998)

Environment - current issues

Deforestation; land degradation; water pollution from agricultural runoff, sewage, industrial wastes; over abundance of silt in the spawning grounds endangering fish populations.

Geography Note

Landlocked; Lake Nyasa, some 360 mi (580 km) long, is the country's most prominent physical feature.

Demographics

Population

10,701,824 (July 2002)
Note: Estimates for this country explicitly take into account the effects of excess mortality due to AIDS; this can result in lower life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates, and changes in the distribution of population by age and sex than would otherwise be expected.

Age structure

0-14 years:	44%	Male: 2,358,730	Female: 2,347,017
15-64 years:	53.2%	Male: 2,810,478	Female: 2,884,601
65 years and over:	2.8%	Male: 120,761	Female: 180,237

(2001)

Growth Rate

1.39% (2002)

Life Expectancy

36.59 years (2002)
Female: 37.15 years
Male: 36.05 years

GDP Per Capita

purchasing power parity
US$660 (2001)

Infant Mortality

119.96 deaths/1,000 live births (2002)

Sex ratio

At birth:	1.03 male(s)/female
Under 15 years:	1 male(s)/female
15-64 years:	0.97 male(s)/female
65 years and over:	0.67 male(s)/female
Total population:	0.98 male(s)/female

(2002)

Net migration rate

0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2002)

Economy & Trade

Landlocked Malawi ranks among the world's least developed countries. The economy is predominately agricultural, with about 90 percent of the population living in rural areas. Agriculture accounts for 40 percent of GDP and 88 percent of export revenues. The economy depends on substantial inflows of economic assistance from the IMF, the World Bank, and individual donor nations. In late 2000, Malawi was approved for relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program. The government faces strong challenges, e.g., to fully develop a market economy, to improve educational facilities, to face up to environmental problems, and to deal with the rapidly growing problem of HIV/AIDS. The performance of the tobacco sector is key to short-term growth. GDP growth had sunk as low as 4.2 percent in 2001 but it had inched back to 1.8 percent by 2002 with ambitious predictions of 6.5 percent growth in 2003. The economy, however, has yet to recover from flooding that devastated crops in early 2003.

Unemployment

N/A

Inflation Rate

28.6% (2001)

Industries

Tobacco, tea, sugar, sawmill products, cement, consumer goods.

Exports

US$415.5 million (f.o.b., 2001)

Imports

US$463.6 million (f.o.b., 2001)

Total Trade

Purchasing power parity
GDP US$7 billion (2001)

Top Export Partners

South Africa 18%, Germany 13%, US 13%, UK 10%, Japan 7%, Netherlands 3% (2000)

Top Import Partners

South Africa 40%, UK 11%, Zimbabwe 7%, Japan 5%, Germany 2%, US 1.8%, Zambia (2000)

Top Exports

Tobacco, tea, sugar, cotton, coffee, peanuts, wood products, apparel

Top Imports

Food, petroleum products, semimanufactures, consumer goods, transportation equipment

Debt - external

US$2.8 billion (2001)

Economic aid

US$427 million (1999)

Fiscal Year:

July 1 to June 30

Business Workweek

	Monday - Friday	Saturday - Sunday
Offices	7:30a.m. to 5p.m.	Closed
Retail	8a.m. to 5p.m.	Closed
Banks	8a.m. to 1p.m.	Closed
Government	7:30a.m. to noon and 1p.m. to 5p.m.	Closed

Holidays

Official Holidays

Holidays	2003	2004	2005
New Year's Day	January 1	January 1	January 1
John Chilembwe Day	January 15	January 15	January 15
Martyr's Day	March 3	March 3	March 3
Good Friday	April 18	April 9	March 25
Easter¹	April 20	April 11	March 27
Easter Monday	April 21	April 12	March 28
Labor Day	May 6	May 6	May 6
Freedom Day	June 14	June 14	June 14
Republic Day	July 6	July 6	July 6
Mother's Day²	October 13	October 11	October 10
Christmas Day³	December 25	December 25	December 25
Boxing Day	December 26	December 26	December 26

¹	Easter, a Christian holiday celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the first Sunday after the full moon and the vernal equinox (fixed in the Gregorian calendar at March 21), and often observed with Good Friday and Easter Monday. In the West, Easter is predicted using the Gregorian calendar, while Eastern Orthodox Christians use the much older Julian calendar, and celebrate 13 days later.
²	Observed the second Monday in October.
³	Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus Christ. In A.D.320, Pope Julius I fixed the date at December 25 based on the Gregorian calendar. The Orthodox church calculates Christmas using the Julian calendar and celebrates 13 days later on January 7.

Country information used by permission of World Trade Press